thoth
MCP server for agentic systematic literature reviews with citation verification. Enables AI assistants to list reviews, get drafts, retrieve citation audits, and manage discovered papers.
README
<div align="center">
<img src="docs/assets/thoth-logo.svg" alt="Thoth — sacred ibis logo" width="120" height="120" />
Thoth
Agentic systematic literature reviews — with every citation checked against the source.
Named for Thoth, ancient Egypt's ibis-headed god of writing and scribes.
Try the live demo · See a sample review · Public eval dashboard · Connect via MCP
<img src="docs/assets/media/showcase-walkthrough.gif" alt="Browsing a completed Thoth review — draft, critic score, and per-claim citation audit" width="760" />
</div>
What is Thoth?
Systematic literature reviews are slow to write — and when you ask an LLM to write one, it confidently invents citations and statistics that aren't in any paper.
Thoth does both halves and checks its own work. Give it a research question and
it discovers relevant papers, reads them, drafts an evidence-grounded review — then
runs a verification pass (cite_check) that compares every cited claim against the
source paper and flags anything unsupported before you read the draft. The result
is a review with a critic score, a citation-faithfulness percentage, and a per-claim
audit you can trust.
It runs as a polished web app, a public eval dashboard, and an authenticated MCP server your AI assistant can call directly.
See it work
Claude.ai catches 6 fabricated citations in a real draft — using Thoth's audit:
<div align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/m5-mcp-demo.gif" alt="Claude.ai connected to Thoth via MCP, using get_citation_audit to identify 6 unsupported claims" width="760" /> </div>
Connected to Thoth via the official MCP Registry, Claude calls
get_citation_auditon one deliberately-weak review (faithfulness 0.13 for that single review) and identifies all 6 unsupported claims — every one citing the same paper, with invented percentages that aren't in the source. This iscite_checkdoing its job: it's a single-review audit sample, not the golden-set aggregate (see/evals).
Every claim, scored against its source — the /showcase review (no login needed). The figures on this card (critic 4.2/5, faithfulness 75%, 8/8 citations checked, 2 unsupported) are this one review's scores — a worked example, not the aggregate:
<div align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/media/02-showcase.png" alt="A completed Thoth review: critic 4.2/5, citation faithfulness 75%, 8/8 citations checked with 2 unsupported — scores for this single sample review" width="760" /> </div>
Evaluated in public — /evals tracks citation recall / precision / faithfulness / coverage over an 18-question versioned golden set (7 of 18 populated at this commit), regenerated in CI and published with the last-run date, so a regression is a public, falsifiable signal:
<div align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/media/03-evals.png" alt="Thoth's public eval dashboard — citation recall, precision, faithfulness, and coverage per golden question" width="760" /> </div>
You approve every step — three human-in-the-loop gates (review plan → review discovered papers → approve included papers); nothing runs unattended:
<div align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/media/hitl-gates.gif" alt="Thoth's three human-in-the-loop approval gates: review plan, review discovered papers, approve included papers" width="760" /> </div>
Key features
- 🔎
cite_check— verifiable citations. Every[paper_id]in the draft is scored against the cited paper and labelled supported / unsupported / unclear, so the LLM can't quietly hallucinate a citation. On the public golden set, the citations it does surface are accurate — citation precision 97%, recall 74% — and the verdict report is published per claim, not summarised away. This is the core differentiator: the citations are measured, not asserted. - 🌐 Outbound web search (v2 — under active evaluation). An outbound
discoverer → fetcher → screenerpath is wired across OpenAlex, arXiv, and Exa: it fetches open-access PDFs, OCRs them, and screens each against your plan, so you can run uploaded-only, hybrid, or fully autonomous discovery. The discovery and screening axes are v2 and still being calibrated — they're tracked openly on/evals(both currently at 0%) rather than shipped as a silent claim. - 🔌 Authenticated, registered MCP server. OAuth 2.1 + PKCE + Dynamic Client Registration via Clerk, SHA-256 audit logging, rate limits — listed in the official MCP Registry. Most public MCP servers ship with no auth; this one doesn't.
- 📊 Public eval dashboard. Recall / precision / faithfulness / coverage over a
versioned golden set, regenerated in CI and stamped with the last-run date, rendered at
/evals— an eval regression is a public signal, not a hidden one. - 💸 6 LLM providers, $0/mo by default. Swap providers with one env var; the Mistral free tier runs the whole thing, and the entire stack deploys on free tiers for $0/mo.
🚀 Quickstart
Try it now (nothing to install):
- Open the live demo → and build a review, or browse a finished one →.
Connect it to your AI assistant — paste this into claude.ai (Pro/Max), Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client (OAuth runs in your browser; no token to copy):
https://thoth-slr.vercel.app/api/mcp/mcp
<details> <summary>Read-only MCP tools (scoped to your account)</summary>
list_reviews— your reviews with critic + faithfulness scoresget_review_draft— the markdown draft of a completed reviewget_citation_audit— the per-claim cite_check verdict reportlist_discovered_papers(v2) — papers the discoverer surfaced, with fetch + screening statusget_search_queries(v2) — the queries the discoverer generated + per-provider errors
Full reference: docs/mcp/tools.md · auth + audit model: docs/mcp/security.md
</details>
<div align="center"> <img src="docs/assets/m5-mcp-setup.gif" alt="Adding Thoth as a custom MCP connector in claude.ai — paste the URL, OAuth via Clerk + Dynamic Client Registration" width="760" /> <br/><em>Adding Thoth as a custom connector in claude.ai — OAuth runs in your browser (Clerk + DCR), no token to copy.</em> </div>
Run it locally:
git clone https://github.com/ahmedEid1/thoth.git && cd thoth
cp .env.example .env # Clerk + Trigger.dev keys + MISTRAL_API_KEY
docker compose up -d # postgres, minio, langfuse
pnpm install && pnpm prisma migrate dev
pnpm dev # Next.js on :3000
pnpm dev:trigger # Trigger.dev worker (separate terminal)
Full setup, the agent pipeline, and the v2 flow: docs/architecture.md.
Proof
| Live app | thoth-slr.vercel.app (Clerk sign-in) · sample review at /showcase |
| Public evals | /evals — citation precision 97%, recall 74% on a versioned 18-question golden set (7 of 18 populated at this commit; faithfulness 38% / coverage 32% tracked in the open as the set fills out; discovery/screening v2 under calibration). Regenerated in CI, published with the last-run date — a regression is a public signal. |
| MCP Registry | io.github.ahmedEid1/thoth — status: active |
| Tests | 676 unit/integration + 22 live e2e against the deployed instance (MCP transport, real-browser, authenticated walkthroughs, full agent runs) — all green; tsc + lint clean |
| Audit log | Every MCP call recorded with a SHA-256 input hash; no raw input stored |
| Deploy cost | $0/mo — Vercel + Neon + Cloudflare R2 + Langfuse + Trigger.dev, all free tiers (self-host option) |
For engineers
Thoth is a LangGraph StateGraph driven by a Trigger.dev worker, with durable
human-in-the-loop gates, a per-run cost cap, and exactly-once gate delivery. Next.js 16
- TypeScript (strict), Postgres + Prisma, Clerk auth (web + OAuth 2.1 for MCP), S3-compatible storage, Mistral OCR, Langfuse tracing.
- Architecture — the agent pipeline, full stack, v2 flow, tests
- LLM providers — the 6-provider matrix + resilience knobs
- MCP tools · MCP security
- Security & privacy — data inventory, jurisdictions, deletion paths
- Self-host — one VM on Oracle Cloud Always Free
- Changelog · Releasing
Credits
Ibis icon by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0, via game-icons.net.
License
MIT © 2026 Ahmed Hobeishy
Recommended Servers
playwright-mcp
A Model Context Protocol server that enables LLMs to interact with web pages through structured accessibility snapshots without requiring vision models or screenshots.
Magic Component Platform (MCP)
An AI-powered tool that generates modern UI components from natural language descriptions, integrating with popular IDEs to streamline UI development workflow.
Audiense Insights MCP Server
Enables interaction with Audiense Insights accounts via the Model Context Protocol, facilitating the extraction and analysis of marketing insights and audience data including demographics, behavior, and influencer engagement.
VeyraX MCP
Single MCP tool to connect all your favorite tools: Gmail, Calendar and 40 more.
graphlit-mcp-server
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server enables integration between MCP clients and the Graphlit service. Ingest anything from Slack to Gmail to podcast feeds, in addition to web crawling, into a Graphlit project - and then retrieve relevant contents from the MCP client.
Kagi MCP Server
An MCP server that integrates Kagi search capabilities with Claude AI, enabling Claude to perform real-time web searches when answering questions that require up-to-date information.
Neon Database
MCP server for interacting with Neon Management API and databases
E2B
Using MCP to run code via e2b.
Exa Search
A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server lets AI assistants like Claude use the Exa AI Search API for web searches. This setup allows AI models to get real-time web information in a safe and controlled way.
Qdrant Server
This repository is an example of how to create a MCP server for Qdrant, a vector search engine.